


The Most Essential Things Are Invisible to the Eye

by savanting



Series: Kashimalin's 50 Kisses Challenge [28]
Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: ALL THE FLUFF, Cute, Cutesy, F/M, Fluff, One Shot, Post-Canon, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27768511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savanting/pseuds/savanting
Summary: Fakir fears he has lost the only chance he had to give Ahiru back her human form - but is it really too late? One-Shot.[Prompt 13. Butterfly kisses against the other’s cheeks.]Using Kashimalin's 50 kisses prompt list: https://www.google.com/amp/s/kashimalin-fanfiction.tumblr.com/post/178524845380/50-kiss-prompts/amp
Relationships: Ahiru | Duck & Fakir (Princess Tutu), Ahiru | Duck/Fakir (Princess Tutu)
Series: Kashimalin's 50 Kisses Challenge [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023708
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	The Most Essential Things Are Invisible to the Eye

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own _Princess Tutu_.
> 
>  _Princess Tutu_ , like _Revolutionary Girl Utena_ , is one of those anime that I really took a long time to appreciate. What's amazing to me is how long it took me to realize how much I love _fairy tales_ \- and their deconstructions. _Princess Tutu_ is adorable on a surface level, but beneath you have a story that questions fairy-tale trappings and what we usually take away from them. I like an anime that gets me thinking!
> 
> Thank @Five_seas for this one because I have never tackled a Fakir/Ahiru fic, but I really enjoy touching upon the characters who, in some corner of my headcanon universe, are living happily no matter what anyone else says about them.
> 
> The title comes from this quote: “It is only with the heart that one can see clearly, for the most essential things are invisible to the eye.” (Hans Christian Andersen, _The Ugly Duckling_ )
> 
> The link to the original prompt list: https://www.google.com/amp/s/kashimalin-fanfiction.tumblr.com/post/178524845380/50-kiss-prompts/amp

The more Fakir tried to write a story with Ahiru becoming a human girl once again, the greater his failures were. Though he had become a well-known storybook writer - _The Wondrous Adventures of the Duck Princess_ was his most well-known - the things he wrote never allowed Ahiru to grasp any kind of magical transformation or change. As a duck, she was often just content in her pond; he didn’t even think she had kept the same kind of cognition she had possessed as a human.

That would have been worse, he supposed, like a curse with no end. Imagine being a girl stuck stuffed inside a duck’s body, quacks in place of words.

Fakir couldn’t say he wasn’t content. He owned a little cottage steps away from the pond, and he imagined he would grow old and die in that same place. It was a quiet life, a _good life_ , but something was missing.

If Ahiru had been a girl, like any other maiden in the nearby village, she would have delighted in collecting wildflowers in the spring and winding flower crowns for her, Fakir, and the little girls in the village. He imagined that she would show them how to dance, no matter how clumsy she could be, and even when she fell she would have laughed and made the little girls join in merrily.

When he tried to write _that_ story, he would inevitably hit a wall - and the tear-stained parchment betrayed him. Because that was a life that could never be. Ahiru had traded away her chance at humanity just to save others. She had learned what it meant to love and how to act on that love in the most selfless way possible.

When he would retrieve Ahiru from the pond and place her in her basket on his nightstand right before bed, he would look over at her and wonder at the life they could have lived. If only, if only. But his power had faded, especially as he reached adulthood, as if his age meant the magic bled from him more easily - and faded even more quickly. Whatever magic could restore her to her once-upon-a-time human state, he no longer possessed it.

Fakir might have been able to ignore all these things, but it didn’t help that the village girls his age were...pushy, to say the least.

“Oh, Master Fakir, will you write me a poem?” one girl named Ersa asked when he went into town to buy bread and cheese one morning. “Maybe even a _love_ poem?”

Ersa was a pretty girl, if a bit forward, but Fakir could only think that her smile wasn’t as inviting as Ahiru’s had once been. While Ersa may have been an ideal choice for a farmer or even a traveling bard, he knew he couldn’t satisfy her, even if he had wanted to: his head was too often dreaming up new stories, new threads to weave and new characters to create, and she would feel neglected. And would she welcome a duck sleeping beside the bed she shared with her husband each night? He thought not.

But Fakir was also lonely. Even back when he had been a schoolboy, he had felt alone: that was why he had clung so tightly to Mytho. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, really, to charm a village girl and invite her on a day trip to the next village over…

Always, though, what stopped him was the thought of Ahiru waiting in her pond.

“I’m sorry,” Fakir said, retrieving his basket of food, “but I have far too much work to do on the book I’m currently composing.”

He saw Ersa’s smile fall before he turned away. Maybe next time she wouldn’t ask at all.

By the time he arrived back home, storm clouds had rolled in, foretelling a nasty night ahead. Fakir went inside to set down his market goods before going out to the pond to retrieve Ahiru.

But the duck was nowhere to be found.

A panic constricted over Fakir’s heart. He called her name, his voice carrying in a frantic way, and the first few droplets of rain pelted him. But still he wandered around the cottage, into the nearby forest, anywhere that she might have strayed.

It was no use, even as his voice grew ragged and he grew tired. By the time he was under cover of the trees, he could hear the thunder beginning to roil in.

Hours may have passed, but still he wandered, calling out for a duck who didn’t even know she had once been a girl. A girl he had loved, a girl that he still loved, a girl that he wished had been more selfish even though that might have made him love her less.

Fakir slumped down against a tree trunk and laughed at himself, tears and rain mingling together on his face. All this, for a duck. All this, for a girl that had never been his to claim anyway.

When next he opened his eyes, he saw the glimmer of sunlight - and in front of him stood a familiar girl, dressed in a pale yellow dress. But what he noticed right away were the large gem-bright eyes and the wild hair of orangest sunrises.

“Ahiru?” The name fell from his lips in all the disbelief of the moment.

The girl cocked her head. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

But he didn’t wait to hear more - _how could this be, what happened, why are you here, what is going on_ \- because he tugged her arm until her knees met the forest floor and they were sitting eye-to-eye.

“The last time I saw you, the story changed - _your_ story changed,” he said, his voice still full of disbelief.

The girl-who-couldn’t-be-could-she laughed. “I’ve always been here, silly,” she said. “You just weren’t looking hard enough.”

He shook his head, still not believing what was right before him. “I don’t understand,” he said.

Ahiru sighed - as if _he_ were the one being ridiculous! - but her lips twitched with a smile. “Close your eyes.”

Now Fakir was even more suspicious. What if he had encountered a witch of some kind? “Is this a trick?”

“Don’t be stubborn,” she said, and the pout - he hadn’t seen that expression in such a long time - was unmistakably Ahiru when she wasn’t getting her way.

Still not daring to believe, Fakir closed his eyes.

He could feel her warmth as she leaned in, close enough that her eyelashes brushed his cheek. If she was a witch, now would be the time that she would steal his soul. But he couldn’t bring himself to worry. Not with his heart beating double-time just because _it all felt real_.

“Thank you for not forgetting,” Ahiru whispered. “I’m glad I have a home with you.”

The words were heartbreakingly fragile, like glass just spun into shape, and he wanted to assure her - _”I wouldn’t have it any other way”_ \- but he opened his eyes to an empty forest.

He blinked rapidly, as if he had just awoken from a long nap. A dream. It had all just been a dream, hadn’t it? His subconscious was trying to make him feel better.

Except he looked down to find Ahiru - in her duck form - asleep in his lap.

Fakir felt something spark - like inspiration, like magic - and he realized: maybe he could change _their_ story after all.

And, just like that, he realized the rain had stopped - and the sunlight was beginning to seep through anew in the gaps between the trees.

Fakir had to get home: there were more books to write and only so little time.


End file.
